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Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in Postsecondary Education
NCES 94394
March 1994

Primary Contact Point for Provision of Support Services

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). which requested this survey, was interested in obtaining information about the types of student service personnel who have responsibility for coordinating disability support services. OSERS wanted to know what person or office on campus would be the primary point of contact for deaf and hard of hearing students when such students requested support services. This information is useful to OSERS (and others) in targeting the dissemination of information to institutions about service provision for disabled students. The primary point of contact on campus for the provision of support services to deaf and hard of hearing students was the following:

  • A person or office on campus that provides services to students with disabilities when the need arises (44 percent);

  • A person or office on campus that is responsible (on an ongoing basis) for services to students with disabilities, in addition to other duties (41 percent);

  • An office devoted entirely to services for students with disabilities (11 percent);

  • A coordinator devoted entirely to services for students with disabilities, but located within another office (3 percent); and

  • Some other primary point of contact (1 percent).

Size of the institution was strongly related to the primary point of contact for the provision of support services. As institutional size increased, the likelihood of having an office devoted entirely to services for students with disabilities increased (Table 12). While only 3 percent of small institutions had an office devoted entirely to services for students with disabilities, 26 percent of medium institutions and 68 percent of large institutions had such an office. At smaller institutions, it was much more likely that a person or office on campus provided these services when the need arose; 55 percent of small institutions used this primary point of contact compared with 10 percent of medium institutions and 1 percent of large institutions. About half (52 percent) of medium institutions had a person or office on campus responsible for services to students with disabilities, in addition to their other duties, compared with 40 percent of small institutions and 23 percent of large institutions.

Only 4 percent of 2-year and 4-year postsecondary education institutions had an office or coordinator devoted entirely to services for deaf and hard of hearing students (Figure 6). Institutional size was strongly related to the presence of an office or coordinator devoted entirely to services for deaf and hard of hearing students; only 2 percent and 4 percent respectively, of the small and medium institutions had such an office or coordinator, compared with 25 percent of the large institutions. Large institutions were most likely to need such a coordinator, since they are more likely to have deaf and hard of hearing students continuously enrolled --94 percent of large institutions enrolled students who identified themselves as deaf or hard of hearing in all of the last 4 academic years, compared with 68 percent of medium and 13 percent of small institutions (see Table 1).

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